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Contraceptive @ 45

I turned 45 this year. I asked my OB for tubal ligation but she said that at my age, it is no longer appropriate. Instead, she gave me oral contraceptives. I don't feel any side effects at all but, I don't like the idea of taking pill everyday.

Aside from the fact that the pill is inconvenient to take, it also comes with risks associated with breast cancer, and this is one reason why I chose never to take hormonal birth control like the pill.

I have used natural family planning for 29 years. I am not going through menopause, at the age of 49 (peri-menopause started when I was 47).

When I was 45, I had a 5 year old daughter, whom I conceived at age 40. But by age 45, pregnancy that doesn't result in miscarriage is very rare.

At age 40, most women only have a 5% chance of conceiving each month; at 45 this has dropped to 3%, and by the time a woman is 46, her egg supply is pretty much exhausted and pregnancy only very rarely occurs at this age.

One of the best things you can do now is to learn how to watch your body's signs of fertility so that you'll know when to avoid sex in order to avoid pregnancy. Here's a thread I started which discusses how to use natural birth control - natural family planning to avoid and achieve pregnancy, as desired. It has worked very well for us.

You can also use a non-hormonal form of birth control like condoms. It's just that my husband was never interested in using them, so we practiced natural family planning without condoms.

There may actually be classes held at your local hospital that teach you how to do this. We found a class at a Catholic Hospital and they met with us once a week for a month which made us feel very confident in what we were doing.

Alternatively, I can help you here. Just let me know if you have any questions or feel uncertain about what you are seeing in your cycle.

What would your husband think of using a condom for a couple of months while you come off the pill? You won't see good signs of fertility while you're on the pill and it may take 6-8 weeks for you to see signs of fertility after coming off of it.

If you're husband would be willing to do this (or pull out or abstain) for a couple of months while your body adjusts to being off of hormonal birth control then I could help you learn how to read your body's signs of fertility until you felt confident in doing so. Then, he would only need to use a condom or pull out when you weren't in your fertile window - otherwise, you're simply not fertile when you are bleeding or "dry", which is 3 weeks out of every month. 5 days or so of bleeding and 14 days after the egg has been released. The egg is only viable for 12-24 hours. After that, it dies, and cannot be fertilized.